Jeff Abbott. The Progressive. July 29, 2024
Yet another former anti-corruption prosecutor in Guatemala has been forced into exile.
On July 18, Lilian Virginia Laparra Rivas, who worked with the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity, commonly known by the Spanish acronym FECI, was forced into exile due to continued political persecution. She joins several dozen other anti-corruption prosecutors, investigators, activists, and journalists who have been forced into exile since 2021.
“No one should suffer what I was forced to face in recent times,” Laparra Rivas wrote in her public letter announcing her exile. “To date, I have been unjustly convicted twice. All of this for the sole reason of doing my job independently and having kept my dignity intact.”
She ends the letter by stating, “More than ever, I am certain that the truth is on my side. From exile, I confirm to you again: That can never be taken away from me.”
Laparra Rivas has faced criminal prosecution since 2017 for speaking out against corruption, and in 2022 she was arrested and kept in pre-trial detention.
Just a week before her exile she was convicted by a court in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala’s second largest city, and sentenced to five years in prison for revealing confidential information. She was previously sentenced to four years in prison in December 2022 in a case that Amnesty International calls “unfounded.” The organization also labels her as a prisoner of conscience.
Laparra Rivas is not the only high profile politically persecuted actor in Guatemala who has been denied a fair trial despite the change of government. Political prisoners like journalist José Rubén Zamora continue to suffer in prison as his legal cases remain at a standstill.
He has been in pre-trial detention for more than 700 days.
The conditions that Zamora faces in prison have raised red flags for press freedom advocates around the world. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Zamora has experienced acts of torture by being deprived of light, water, and sleep, and “has been detained in unsanitary conditions that pose a danger to his physical health and well-being.” CPJ is seeking the attention of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
“Jose Rubén Zamora’s treatment in prison and pre-trial detention is appalling and constitutes a grave violation of international human rights standards,” Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, said in a press release. “The international community must act urgently to ensure his immediate release.”
The punishment of these anti-corruption actors signals President Bernardo Arévalo’s inability to reel in the judicial branch—specifically the Public Prosecutor’s Office led by Attorney General María Consuelo Porras and her far-right allies. This high profile exile comes as a major setback for the president, who presented Laparra Rivas with the medal of Order of Labor Excellence for her work in March 2024.
“Virginia being forced to leave the country is a terrible blow for the government of Bernardo Arévalo,” Jorge Santos, a Guatemalan human rights defender with the organization Unit for Protection for Human Rights Defenders, tells The Progressive. “It is one more demonstration of the deep need for the president to dismiss the Attorney General and her entire team for these illegal actions.”
Since taking office, President Arévalo and his allies have made multiple attempts to remove Porras, including seeking a reform to the law that governs the Public Prosecutor’s Office. But each effort has failed.
Attorney General Porras oversaw the attempt to overturn the results of the 2023 election, in which President Arévalo won a surprise victory. Porras was sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for acts of corruption and her part in attempting a coup d’état against the democratic order. Her term as Attorney General ends in 2026.
Arévalo campaigned on improving conditions in Guatemala so that those who have been forced into exile can return, but six months into the administration he has not yet accomplished this. And as Laparra’s case shows, people are still being forced into exile as the judicial system continues to persecute its political opponents.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has sought to create a parallel government, which has made diplomatic visits with far-right evangelical groups in the United States and met with Luis Almargo, the president of the Organization of American States, which promotes cooperation in the Americas.
The threat against Guatemala’s democratic order, which began ahead of the electoral process in 2023, has not abated, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office remains the primary institution behind these efforts.
In spite of President Arévalo’s goals, these attacks mean that human rights remain at risk in Guatemala.
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office, together with the actors linked to the corruption, have become a political police that investigates, persecutes, and represses what they consider to be their opposition,” Santos says. “It represents an enormous blow to the government.”
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